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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Aside from high grades and SAT scores, what can a student do to stand out when applying to top CS programs?[/quote]
No idea.  My kid had multiple internships, even one paid, a few competition wins and was deferred from Ga Tech and Northeastern and flat out rejected from UIUC.   Very high stats and highest course rigor.  [/quote]
Any luck at UMD?[/quote]
DP.. my kid got rejected to both UIUC and GA Tech, accepted to UMD honors for CS.

Deferred at MIT and UMich.

Very high stats.

Very strange college admissions world.[/quote]

I'd go with UMD over GA Tech and UIUC. Sure, the latter two are highly ranked, but when you look at the specifics of their programs, I find MD to be stronger since it has fewer 1950s-era electrical engineering and physics requirements that aren't all that helpful for CS.  Look GA Tech and UIUC are fine programs but as someone who has worked in the industry for 40 years and has advanced degrees, there are only a handful of programs that I like better than MD. About half of those ranked above it to me aren't really worth the bother.[/quote]
PP here.  Thanks for the feedback.

But, then why is GA Tech and UIUC ranked so much higher than UMD for CS? 
[/quote]

Not so much really, by most reckonings UMDCP is ranked around 13th in the US for CS. If you are interested in a specific area like say machine learning, it's around #8 according to csrankings.org. My point is it's not significantly different. I think GA Tech and UIUC are fine but as someone who went through this when I was younger, I'd avoid any school that requires you to study engineering for CS. The most attractive thing about the UMDCP CS program to me is it has a lot of flexibility baked in. So you could study say networking and cybersecurity if that's your thing or avoid that altogether and focus on machine learning and algorithms...  [/quote]
Thanks for the feedback.

Are you saying UIUC and GA tech don't have that kind of flexibility to take networking or machine learning classes?

This is very interesting.  More info, please.[/quote]

Most of these schools have a rigid set of requirements. Subjects like compilers or Operating Systems are typically required, but very few students will ever work in those areas. Now those are fine classes but not useful to everyone. MD has all those courses but allows students greater flexibility. Schools like GA Tech and UIUC I believe, have CS in their engineering schools and impose additional requirements unrelated to modern CS. I haven't looked at the specifics lately and could be mistaken, but I would encourage you to look at these programs more closely. Specifically look at what a 4 year plan would look like.

When I was in CS, I went through an engineering program, and can tell you it just made it a lot less pleasant and there was little benefit. I didn't need to take 12 hours of physics or 12 hours of outdated electrical engineering classes. I would rather have the freedom to pursue areas of interest more deeply. This isn't possible in many programs because of the restrictions.

https://undergrad.cs.umd.edu/general-track-degree-requirements[/quote]

Dude, can you please stop spewing misinformation!
You keep bringing up GA Tech and UIUC as counterpoints to UMD, but continually misrepresent and feels like you are just making stuff up.
I'll talk about GA Tech, because I am familiar with their program, but given how many times and points you get wrong, I don't have much faith that your other info is accurate.

GA Tech's CS program is NOT in their college of engineering... they have a separate College of Computing.  In fact, they've had the CoC since 1988 -- so it was that way, even "back in the day".  You are not required to take irrelavant general engineering classes.
And about being forced to take a Compilers class when that is not your area of interest... GA Tech has the concept of Threads, where you pick classes in the couple threads that you are interested in to focus.  Don't like compilers, don't go down that thread... like AI, do that one.

Stop spreading lies and disinformation.  Maybe you are trying to get less kids to apply there to increase your chances?

[/quote]

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